SIR STUART Rose, who courted controversy by being both chairman and chief executive of Marks & Spencer, enjoyed an £8 million (€9 million) “golden goodbye” from the high street bellwether. And Marc Bolland, its chief executive, received pay and share awards worth up to about £14 (€15.8 million) million last year.
Mr Bolland was not awarded his full first-year package of up to about £15 million as he missed out on his full bonus because M&S did not meet its profit target in the year to March, according to the retailer’s annual report.
The level of remuneration to Sir Stuart and Mr Bolland could reignite investor ire over pay at M&S despite its new chairman, Robert Swannell, attempting to lay tensions to rest with a new, more modern, pay structure.
One shareholder said the size of the payments, together with M&S’s decision to include sales growth as one of the performance criteria in its new pay plan, would “raise a few eyebrows”.
According to the annual report, Sir Stuart, who was non-executive chairman from July until he stepped down in January, walked away with £8.1 million in cash and shares. He received £2.77 million in salary and bonus, with his £1.36 million bonus paid in full in cash. He also gained £915,000 in a share plan that was scheduled to pay out, and another £4.5 million of long-term share awards that would have potentially paid out in future years, which were accelerated under “good leaver” status.
Sir Stuart’s salary as non-executive chairman came under fire last year, while two years ago, he was forced to give up more than £1 million of shares to avert a showdown with shareholders.
Disclosure of his remuneration comes just days after he spoke out at the Hay Festival against payment for failure, and called for a review of the widening gap between executive pay and staff wages. According to the annual report, Mr Bolland received just under £5 million in salary bonus and share awards, in the year to April 2nd. This included £894,000 in salary, and £2.6 million to compensate him for awards he would have received at Wm Morrison.
MS also revealed that Laura Wade-Gery, the high-flying Tesco executive who joins in a few weeks, would receive a golden hello of up to £4.2 million. – (Copyright Financial Times Ltd 2011)
